There’s a connection between DEI and ROI.
Research suggests that more than half (54%) of consumers don’t feel culturally represented in online advertising, making them less likely to purchase from certain brands.
Which is why some brands, including Haleon-owned over-the-counter pain medication Panadol, are making an effort to be more inclusive in their messaging.
Together with AI platform CreativeX, Haleon developed a product called the Health Inclusivity Screener that scans and analyzes digital ad creative for diversity, inclusivity and accessibility. Panadol is using the tool, which first launched in November.
The idea, said Lisa Jennings, global leader of Haleon’s over-the-counter category, is to incorporate inclusivity “as an expectation of our work going forward.”
In addition to Panadol, Haleon owns a large portfolio of pain relief brands, including Advil, Tums, Excedrin and Theraflu.
Panadol’s diversity screening
It’s not always possible to tell someone’s race or ethnicity just by looking at them. Haleon’s inclusivity screener uses AI to categorize the people in ad creative based on gender, four different age groups and six skin tones.
The tool also scans creative for text overlays, simplified language and situational settings, said Alim Mukhida, a strategic account director at CreativeX. Analyzing where an ad is set can often reveal potential stereotypical portrayals of certain demographics.
But rather than scoring creative based on whether or not it’s “diverse,” Mukhida said, the goal is to flag opportunities to introduce more diversity into future creative.
Advertisers, for example, may know they should portray men in more domestic scenes or make their messaging easier to read. Those adjustments could make a real difference to a brand’s ability to generate higher return on ad spend, Mukhida said. But it’s valuable to have data to back up those creative choices.
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Despite conservative backlash against DEI initiatives, a recent study conducted by Facebook in 2021 suggests that roughly 59% of consumers prefer to buy from brands that stand for diversity and inclusion in online advertising.
Ads are also more effective when they’re easier to read. According to Haleon, ad copy written at a fourth-grade reading level demonstrates 1.6 times higher brand recall compared to other Haleon messaging written above a fourth-grade reading level. Video ads with text overlays also have 1.2 times higher video completion rates than ads without text, according to the same data.
Pain relief ages up
It’s only logical that when consumers can relate to the representation in a brand’s message, they’ll be more engaged with that brand.
“We definitely expect ROI to increase” as a result of introducing more diversity and accessibility in ad creative, Jennings said.
One of Panadol’s specific goals is to increase the representation of adults over age 60. A recent CreativeX study suggests only 4% of global advertisements include people in that age group.
“There’s a huge opportunity to capture the affinity and purchasing power of this demographic,” Mukhida said.
Diversity can also be a differentiator from the competition, he said. Although some advertisers are pulling back on diversity initiatives in the current political climate, others can emphasize the fact that they’re continuing to stand by their diversity initiatives.
